10 weeks to Port

Photo.
This picture was taken at Stanwell Tops looking back down towards Wollongong. You can just see the Sea Cliff Bridge. It's exactly 30km to this point and the ride has 3 good climbs, the toughest being Bald Hill. We generally ride further into the national Park and at the moment Saturday's group are turning around at Gerrie.





Good week of training last week (16hrs). This week the focus will be on a 180km ride and 6km run on Tuesday. Goal is to insert 5-40min efforts at IMpace with a 20min recovery. The next big session will be a triple brick on Friday. This will include a 1hr bike and 6km run repeated 3 times through. On top of that I’ll aim to bring my long run up to around the 1:40 mark and also swim at least 3 sessions this week.

Monday
Swim: 1.5km 30min (117bpm) Ocean swim. Super choppy conditions this morning. We swam up to North Beach (500m) hoped out and then walked to belmore. Did another 20min before we almost swam into a huge pack of blue bottles. We then decided to hop out and call it a day.
Swim: 3.6km 1:20. Uni squad. 12-50 on 1min, 6-100 on 1:40, 6-100 back/free main set (4-50 hard 300 buoy) x 3. 50’s were meant to be flat out, but decided to back them off slightly. Don't want to be tired for tomorrows ride
Tuesday
Bike: 180km 5:36 (av hr 141). Lake loop, Jamberoo and then Stanwell Park. We did 1 hr easy , then 5-40min efforts (non drafting) with a 20min recovery. The pace was certainly on today. I rode well right up to about the 5hr mark, then on popped on the coalcliff hills. My 21 wasn't easy another to stop the lactic acid from accumulating. The rest of the ride (ie last 20km) was into a roaring headwind and my legs were smashed. Need to get a 23 on the back for Port. Scott H had a smoking ride. Super strong from start to finish and blew me out the back on a number of occasions.
Our 5-40min (3.5hrs) efforts equated to a 35.5kph av speed. This gives us around a 5:05 bike split. Things are on track at the moment. Hopefully in about 4-6 weeks time we can increase our av sp to over 36kph mark. We just need to find another 0.5-1.0kph to get ourselves close to a 5hr bike split we are aiming for.
Run: 6km 27:26 (av hr 146bpm). Run off the bike felt surprisingly good. Heaps of energy and legs weren't heavy at all. Ran on RPE and I was comfortably holding 4:35min k's. Probably a bit to quick to be running out of transition, but the legs and RPE were in good places so I went for it.
Wednesday
Run: 14.3km 1:11 (av hr 134bpm). Towardgi 5km out, lighthouse loop. Very easy run this morning. Legs have pulled up well after yesterdays big day. I good sign that pacing was on target with the 180km ride. No issues with my legs. I would say I'm about 90% injury free now. This is good, as the body is coping well with the increase in volume.
Thursday
Bike 55km 2hr (110bpm). very easy aerobic maintenance ride today. kept it in the small chain ring. legs were still feeling a little fatigued from Tuesdays session. Watched the aquathon after the ride.
Friday
Run: 11km 1hr (130bpm). felt very sloppy running this morning. Had no rhythm. legs were feeling heavy. Didn't push it at all this morning Just focused on trying to maintain good from.
Saturday
No training. Canoe trip down at Kangaroo valley kept me busy Friday and Today.

Sunday
TRIPLE BRICK
Bike 30km 57:41 (av hr 131bpm). Triple brick. This ride was to be done below IMpace. We achieved that. Av sp was around 31kph. Legs felt good. We rode out for 30min and then came back in 27min.
Run 6.5km 29:52 ( av hr 145bpm). ran this one too hard. Av hr was right on Aet which is 5bpm below Impace, but I think it was still too intense. Legs felt good after the ride. We ended up running 4:30min k's, pace should of been at 5min k's. Live and learn. We ran out for 15min and made it back in 14:52.
Bike 32.7km 27:29 (av hr 145bpm). Av sp on this ride was 36.4kph. Probably still slightly too hard in terms of hr. We need to watch that and stay in the right zone next time. These triple brick are a great learning curve.
Run 6.9km 30:13 (av hr 152bpm). This was my best run to date. Felt fantastic in the legs. Very poor pacing as we ran well under IMpace. 4:18min k's is what I averaged and Scotty was quicker again. So much for running at Impace (goal is 5min k's). Need to control pace on these bricks in order to run a good IM.
Bike 31km 56:14 (151bpm). Big negative split on this last ride. 30min out and 26:14 back. Temps were right up now and the winds were howling. Still averaged over 35kph. which is excellent. Av hr was spot on HIM pace
Run 6.7km 29:45 (av hr 160bpm). Things were getting uncomfortable out there on this run. Boy it was hot. 4:16 min k's average was good to finish off the day. Felt like I was going to blow a casket on the way home though.
What a quality session. Learnt so much today doing a triple brick, especially in terms of pacing. Our pacing is still off at the moment and hopefully we'll have this corrected for our next session. Ran 20km today and my legs feel great. I think I'm about 95% injury free now.
Swim 2km 35min. No-one showed up for a swim. I jumped in anyway and did a very easy 35min. Body feels pretty good after this mornings triple brick.

Total: 18:21.
What a quality week of training. Body is holding up well. The run frequency protocol is working. I hit 4 hrs of running this week and I have no leg issues. The 180km ride on Tuesday and the Triple brick session on Sunday are probably two of the best sessions I have ever done. It’s great to train with Scotty H. We are really pushing each other along at the moment. He is still riding very strong and is running all over me. I get to pay him back in the pool and out in the ocean.
I’ve seen a big jump in my fitness over the last two weeks. I put this down to doing some very consistent training now for the past 8 weeks. It feels good to be injury free again and to be putting in some quality sessions. My body composition has improved and I’m now down to 80kg. My morning resting hr has also dropped down to 42bpm. A good sign that my fitness is returning after such a long layoff due to my injury.
Next week Scott and I will back things off slightly between Monday and Friday (reduce volume by 30%). On Saturday we’ll then start our next 4 week cycle of training.